I’m going to go against my own desires this morning.
(Never an easy task for an early-Taurus male!)
The TFC fan in me would love to see next March’s L.A.-Toronto CONCACAF quarterfinal played in the icy confines of BMO Field. Fired-up supporters screaming “This is our house” while the La-La-Landers run around in shorts in the teeth of a Great Lakes March. Coldest, windiest place in the whole city.
Home. Field. Advantage!
There are, however, some compelling plus-points to taking a one-game exodus from the red-plastic wind chamber. The team – nay, the sport – could garner some very real long-term benefits to moving the Galaxy game … to the ‘Dome.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The Concrete Chasm. The Thing With The Lid On It. Or (as they would never let me say in my Sportsnet days) the SkyDome.
The argument runs a little something like this:
BMO Field has 21,000 seats, a third of which are routinely empty for most TFC games.
The ‘Dome has 50,000, most of which will likely be unsellable for a TFC game – at full price.
So let’s borrow a page from the Montreal Impact, who put damn near 50,000 keesters in the Big Owe for this very self, same match three years ago.
They didn’t even try to sell most of those tickets for full price. Instead, they sent them out cheap to schools and soccer clubs, creating The Big Event to try and turn on an entire future generation of fans.
Of course, we won’t know for years if it actually changed anything. But there’s another opportunity for TFC here, and it shouldn’t be lightly dismissed.
Throw a big soccer happening at the big barn, advertise the flip-flap out of it, and let the entire city come to terms with the outside possibility that MLS and CONCACAF soccer might be actually, sort of, kind of, just maybe …
Cool?
A happening, in other words.
I must admit, I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the Montreal Impact. Wildly unpredictable ownership, tons of internal strife, and a tendency to fire coaches every spring that I’ve been making mocking jokes about for two years, and which still continues unabated.
And yet – they pulled off that one huge crowd for that one big game.
Toronto FC needs to address its dwindling fan base. Maybe the best way to do that is put on a real show – and pack the upper deck with school kids and youth soccer players paying $5 a pop – and bringing their parents along at the same price.
Down below, you’ve got your surviving season ticket holders, intrigued onlookers and whatever walk-up crowd a solid month of pre-game hype can muster – all with the reassuring certainty that the game will be played, and the temperature inside the ‘Dome will be comfortable.
Of course, it would boost the gate if David Beckham re-ups four one more tour of Hollywood duty. But even if he doesn’t, Landon Donovan doesn’t turbosuck as a gate attraction, whatever you might think of The Great Man (Honest!) © personally.
It’s time to throw a really big party, in other words.
The opportunity is clear, and the stage is set. Let’s pack the place with fans, kids and good ol' Toronto hipster douchebags.
Onward!